Health

Mobile payments, digital financing and innovative financing options are enabling the rapid deployment of renewable energy in Africa. This is good news for a number of reasons – including public health. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that fuels such as wood, dung, coal and other solid fuels - termed as the “killer in the kitchen” causes 1.5 million deaths annually and two thirds of these deaths takes place in sub-Sahara Africa and South-East Asia.

A team of researchers, led by Samuel K. Sia, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, has introduced a new cheap mobile microfluidic chip that can complete an immediate diagnosis of three simultaneous infectious diseases in only 15 minutes! From a single finger prick, the dongle can perform a tri-plexed immunoassay not currently existing in a single test format, the diagnosis includes: HIV antibodies, treponemal-specific antibodies for syphilis, and nontreponemal antibodiesfor an active syphilis infection.

Technology advancements tend to trickle down making life easier. Kenya has made leaps in enhancing their health service delivery to ensure their citizens benefit in the health sector. These advancements include a medley of several innovations, from developing apps, using cloud computing for data collection, to the promotion of smart phones.